


I Have Made Myself A Gardener

by Plumcot



Series: Bucky's Garden [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Gardening, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 18:12:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15869028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plumcot/pseuds/Plumcot
Summary: "A year ago, all you saw of Bucky Barnes in the media was about the Winter Soldier. Half the pictures available of him were of him in the muzzle. Greasy hair, dead eyes, built to destroy. Now, half of what you found was Bucky Barnes and his garden."





	I Have Made Myself A Gardener

There was no place on earth Bucky loved more than his garden.

In full swing, it was beautiful. Lush trellises with cucumbers nestled in the leaves. Tall tomato plants dotted with striking red fruits that were sweeter than anything you got at the store. The entire roof was a cornucopia of thriving, colorful vegetables and fruits. Even when he didn’t have any work to do, Bucky liked to just sit up in the garden and watch the leaves dancing in the wind. Nothing in the world could disrupt the sense of peace he got up here.

The door to the roof slammed open and Bucky jolted, then glared when he saw who it was. Nothing could disrupt his peace, except maybe Tony Stark.

Bucky shot Tony his best ‘I am not amused’ glare. “What is it?”

“I think I fucked up. No, actually, I did fuck up. Please don’t kill me.”

Bucky frowned. “The hell did you do?”

Tony paused. “I might have accidentally let slip during an interview that the garden is actually yours.”

Bucky blinked. “Okay? So, not the end of the world, then?”

“Well, no, but-”

“Then get out of my happy place.”

“Urban Garden magazine wants to interview you now!” Tony blurted out.

Bucky’s eyes widened. “No. No interviews.”

“That’s what I told them, but-”

Bucky shot out of his chair and stalked past Tony towards the door. “No buts. I’m not doing any interviews!”

“It’s just garden stuff!” Tony followed him inside. “They’re not going to ask you about your favorite methods of murder!”

Bucky whipped around and glared at Tony until he visibly swallowed.

“Too soon?”

“Too soon.” Bucky resumed his march down to his and Steve’s apartment.

“Look, the point is they don’t care about that stuff! They’re just gonna ask you about your opinions on pesticide or whatever-”

“You know I don’t use pesticide, Stark.”

“Yeah, but they don’t! And see, you already have an answer ready!” 

“What’s going on here?” They both looked up to see Steve at the other end of the hall, staring at them quizzically.

Bucky talked to Steve while glaring at Tony. “Tony’s trying to convince me to do an interview.”

Steve frowned. “Tony, we’ve been over this-”

“With Urban Garden magazine!” Tony cut in, throwing his arms out dramatically. “They just want to ask him about the garden!”

“Oh!” Steve blinked, then turned to Bucky, cocking his head. “Well, why not?”

Bucky gave him a baffled look. “Whaddyou mean ‘why not’?”

“Well, I mean,” Steve stepped over to him, “it’s okay if you don’t want to, Buck, but it couldn’t be that bad, right? It might be fun for you, even.”

“Fun?” Bucky raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah! You’re proud of your garden, aren’t you? This is your chance to show it off!”

Bucky screwed up his face in thought. He glanced from Steve’s warm, encouraging smile to Tony’s hyper, excited grin. Then he sighed. “Fine.”

“Yes!” Tony pumped his fist in the air.

“One interview. One. Then I’m done.”

“Yeah, gotcha.” Tony said, already tapping away on his phone. He held it up to his ear, grinning. “Hey, Cindy! He said yes to the interview!”

Steve put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Don’t’ worry, you’ll do fine. And you can always change your mind, y’know. Even at the last minute.”

Bucky nodded, even as he worried away at his lip. “Right. I’ll do fine.”

...

The interview came a week later. A 20-something woman with grass-stained jeans came to the tower and introduced herself as Cindy.

“Bucky Barnes.” Bucky said, shaking her hand. He flinched internally. “But, uh, you knew that."

Cindy chuckled. “You never know, you could’ve just saved me from something very embarrassing! And hey, if you forget my name later on, don’t hesitate to ask. I forget names all the time, so don’t worry about it.”

Bucky put on a smile. “Yeah… thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. I, uh, I guess you want to see the garden?”

“Oh! Yes, of course, please lead the way!”

Cindy took a few pictures of the garden, and a few of him standing next to his tomatoes. Then they sat down, and she pulled out a tape recorder.

“So Bucky, what made you decide to start a garden.”

Bucky took a deep breath. “It, uh, it was actually my therapist who recommended it, to help with my PTSD.” Cindy nodded, and Bucky braced himself for the onslaught of Winter Soldier questions.

“I got the idea from my therapist too, actually.”

Bucky blinked. “Really?”

“Yup!” Cindy smiled. “I have an anxiety disorder, and it’s no cure-all, but gardening is really calming for me.”

Bucky smiled. The first real, genuine smile since they’d shook hands. “What kind of garden do you have?”

Cindy took a breath like she was about to answer, then laughed. “No, no, I’m interviewing you, not the other way around. My boss’ll chew me out if I don’t get the interview done first… tell you what, we get through this, and then I’ll tell you all about my sunflowers, deal?”

Bucky grinned and nodded. “Deal.”

“So I’m seeing a lot of really beautiful vegetables and fruits here. Do you share the produce with the Avengers?”

“Oh yeah.” Bucky laughed. “It’s gotten to the point that Clint complains every time he has to eat a store-bought cucumber.”

...

A month later, Steve walked up to Bucky at breakfast and plopped a magazine down next to his eggs.

He picked it up. The cover was a picture of him, smiling in front of his garden. And next to his head, in big letters: “Bucky Barnes on the Healing Powers of Gardening (and how to protect your crops from supervillains)”

He couldn’t help the smile that spread over his face.

 

It seemed like that first interview had opened the floodgates, because after that the requests just kept coming. Most of them were from people hoping to dig into his past, and Tony made sure to keep them away with a cattle prod. But once they were filtered out, Bucky was left with a nice little collection of requests from gardening magazines and blogs. He took all of those, even the obscure blogs run by amateur hobbyists. He almost never regretted it.

A year ago, all you saw of Bucky Barnes in the media was about the Winter Soldier. Half the pictures available of him were of him in the muzzle. Greasy hair, dead eyes, built to destroy.

Now, half of what you found was Bucky Barnes and his garden. Bucky Barnes and his beautiful tomatoes. Bucky Barnes and his stance on pesticides. Bucky Barnes with sun-tanned skin and a lush garden behind him, Bucky Barnes with vegetables on his mind and a genuine, sunny smile on his face.

Bucky stood in the magazine aisle at the grocery store, thumbing through a magazine with a smile on his face.

He had made himself a gardener.

**Author's Note:**

> So there's a bit of a story behind this. 
> 
> Obviously it's been years since I uploaded the first part of this series, but I actually wrote this pretty much immediately after I uploaded I Want to Make Myself a Gardener. I just didn't post it because I didn't think it was good enough/thought it was too self indulgent. 
> 
> But tonight I was browsing through some old word documents and I found this and I thought to myself, y'know what? That horrid little voice in my head that tells me I'm not good enough is a liar, and a story can never be too self indulgent, so I'm posting it now because I've done a lot of growing since 2015 and I have like, actual self love now! 
> 
> Anyway I hope you like reading this as much as I loved writing it <3


End file.
